Gérard Oury

The son of Serge Tannenbaum, a violinist of Russian-Jewish origin,[1] and Marcelle Houry, a journalist, Oury studied at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and then at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. He became a member of the Comédie-Françaiseone year before World War II, but fled to Switzerland to escape the anti-Jewish persecutions by the Vichy government.

After 1945 he restarted his career as an actor, performing in the theatre and in supporting roles in the cinema. Oury became a movie director in 1959 (The Itchy Palm) and gained his first success in 1961 with Crime Does Not Pay (Le crime ne paie pas).

Pairing André Bourvil and Louis de Funès as a comic duo, he burst into commercial filmmaking with 1965's The Sucker (Le corniaud). The film was entered into the 4th Moscow International Film Festival.[2] The following year, Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (La Grande Vadrouille) was even more successful, attracting the largest audiences ever in France (17.27 million admissions). This box-office record stood for decades, only surpassed in 1997 by Titanic from James Cameron.

Oury shot the 1969 comedy Le Cerveau (The Brain) in English, starring David Niven in the lead role as a criminal mastermind.

Gérard Oury with spouse Michèle Morgan at the Cannes Film Festival, 2001.

With actress Jacqueline Roman, he was the father of French writer Danièle Thompson and grandfather of actor/writer Christopher Thompson. He lived together with the French actress Michèle Morgan for the second half of his life. He died aged 87 in Saint-Tropez on 20 July 2006.[3]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gérard Oury.

• Gérard Oury at IMDb
• Gérard Oury at UniFrance Films